


awake and unafraid.

by aceface



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceface/pseuds/aceface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR INCEPTION. Summary in notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	awake and unafraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at inception_kink for the prompt; Five times Dom woke up from his dreams alone and distraught, and one time someone Ariadne was there to comfort him.

His smile is sly -- "You really don't understand how this works, do you?"

"If it's a dream, does that mean I can have anything I want?"

"It means you can have _everything_ you want."

-

**i.**

Mal reaches out for his hand, and every detail of her is exactly how he remembers. It's easy -- _too_ easy to fall into her, to hold her against him and breathe in the smell of her hair and he says, "yes, yes, we're awake, yes," over and over until it sounds like it's real.

"I'm sorry, darling," she says, and he kisses the top of her head and tightens his grip on her. 

"There's nothing to be sorry about," but when he draws back, she's laughing.

"I'm so sorry."

And he wakes up alone.

**ii.**

He wakes up confused, disorientated; he must've fallen asleep naturally. He hasn't done it in so long that he thought he'd forgotten how to, evolved out of it, thought he'd be able to just stay wide-eyed and awake and not slip down into the suffocating grasp of Level One. Cobb wants to remember Mal as she _was_, beautiful and awake and not this phantom of his dreams. It's not fair on her and it's not fair on the team -- she's becoming sentient, almost, created from a mix of his memories and his desire to see her.

The dream stays with him -- the light from the window falling over the bare skin of her shoulder, the sound of a gasp that he stole from her -- and he draws it around him, resisting the urge to close his eyes.

**iii.**

The first time she tries to sabotage them, Cobb doesn't see it coming -- how could he? Instead, it's Arthur who taps him on the shoulder, nods his head and says, "Incoming."

They've done the job, anyway, she's too late (just like he was) and Arthur glances between them with something that could almost be understanding. Cobb opens his mouth and closes it again, searches for words that aren't there and doesn't ever want to be rid of her.

Arthur claps him on the shoulder -- "I'll give you two a minute" -- and doesn't wait for the kick, turning the gun on himself. 

It's just him and Mal now, just like it should be, and she agrees, soft in his ear.

This time, she seems more real than before, or more enticing. It's slowly becoming more difficult to leave.

**iv.**

"You should be with _me_!" she shouts, and the wine glass shatters in her hand, oozing shards and blood between her fingers. "It's not _real_, those aren't your children!"

"_You're_ not real," he says, and it's the first time that he's said it and the raw hurt in her eyes makes him doubt himself. This isn't real, but it could be. It could be.

He rubs his thumb over his wrists, reluctant to open his eyes.

**v.**

He was always a dreamer, even before he met her. Ideas that were too big for him, and he could never wrap his head around the concept of forgiveness. Never dared to name redemption, the word laying heavy on his tongue. 

"You're trying to go through this, not around it," Arthur says once, but enigmatic isn't something that Arthur does well and Cobb can figure some things out for himself. Who's to say that what's in his head isn't real? Their concept of reality is, after all, something manmade, something created, and maybe what's inside his mind is more real than what's outside it. 

When he meets Ariadne, she is both inside and outside his mind, and Cobb has always understood the idea of betrayal.

He dreams alone that night.

**and vi.**

"There are rules," he says, and, "unless we're on a job then we wake alone."

Ariadne's never been very good at following the rules.

She takes his hand and leads him away from Mal, and he spares her a glance.

This time, he wakes up.

This time, his hand's in hers.


End file.
